MADISON - Wednesday, Senator Melissa Agard (D-Madison) introduced bipartisan legislation to implement teen dating violence prevention curriculum in schools. Joined by Representative Samantha Kerkman (R-Salem) and Senator Jerry Petrowski (R-Marathon), LRB-5627 would require DPI to create and implement a curriculum to teach students about healthy relationships.

Senator Agard released the following statement:

“Teen dating violence is a prevalent problem in the United States where 1 in 3 teens is a victim of physical, emotional, or verbal abuse from a dating partner. Developing healthy relationship practices as a young adult can have lifelong, positive impacts on health, including decreased risk for depression, anxiety, and drug and alcohol abuse.

“Moreover, perpetrating teen dating violence increases the propensity for perpetrating domestic violence in adulthood. To this end, promoting positive relationships and ensuring students learn skills to not only form healthy relationships, but also to identify abusive behavior, is critical to preventing teen dating violence and preventing cyclical abuse patterns.

“I am proud to author LRB-5627, a bipartisan effort with Senator Jerry Petrowski and Representative Samantha Kerkman, to support the building of healthy relationships and prevent teen dating violence in Wisconsin by incorporating essential curriculum into our schools.

“Partner violence is a public health crisis that is completely preventable. LRB-5627 provides common sense solutions to promoting healthy relationship education for Wisconsin teens as well as providing procedures for identifying, preventing and responding to teen dating violence for school district employees.

“Reducing and eliminating dating violence must be achieved through the cooperation of individuals, organizations, and communities, and this bipartisan effort is a real start. This is common sense, pragmatic legislation that we know will save lives once passed.”